Sales

How many times have you launched something, only to have little to no success with it? All too often, we put the cart before the horse and we find ourselves feeling frustrated, disappointed and angry about the way our launch went.

When did trading hours for dollars all of a sudden become so taboo? It’s like people think that working one on one with your customers is a bad thing. “Oh my God! I’m doing too many hours for dollars!”

Can you imagine if every single hairdresser on the planet decided to move to a leverage model and the only way that you could get your hair done is if you took their online program and learned how to cut your own hair?

You already know that business is an exchange of money for a product or service. In order to have a business, you need a customer. In order to gain a customer, they need to know you, like you, trust you, AND buy from you.

So why is it that some people can do it and others cannot? I have a theory around some of the things that differentiate the winners from the losers.

When you are first starting to build a business it is easy for you to compare your mistakes to other people’s success and think that you are a failure.

Instead of looking at your progress, you look at your shortcomings and compare those shortcomings with someone who is much further down the path. This type of comparison is a recipe for disaster because no matter what, you can’t win.

Think of it this way – You would never tell a young child to compare their journey with a top-performing athlete in a professional league would you?

No, because that would diminish their self esteem and leave them feeling like they are not good enough every time.

In fact, I make to do lists and then I celebrate by crossing things off my to do list in a pretty coloured marker. At the end of the day, if there is something left on my to do list, I can’t leave it there. It has to go on a brand new to do list for the next day.

I keep to do lists on my iPhone. Everything from grocery lists and supply lists to people to contact or reply to lists. You name it, I can make a good “do something with this information” kind of list.

I recently walked into a pet supply store and asked the girl who was working if they had any small bags of Now brand dog food for adults.

She looked at me like I was asking for something foreign to their establishment. It was the kind of look that said I was crazy to be asking for dog food in a store with rows and rows of dog food lined up.

She walked over to where the product is kept on the shelf, gave a quick look and said, “No, this is all we have but we have an order coming in tomorrow.”

I asked if they were expecting more of that particular brand in the small bag to be in the order tomorrow.

She told me she didn’t know, and then said, “sorry” and walked away.

That’s it, job done. Another problem customer dealt with.

Definitely not an experience that would have you rushing back to check and see if they have the product you need in the future, right?

Here are four basic things she could have done instead to “close the deal” even thought they didn’t have what I needed at that time:

Try and sell me the larger bag of the same food that they had in stock

Try and offer a different product that I might use instead

Offer to call me the next day when the order arrives and let me know if they received my product

Offer to contact another one of their stores

Instead, she just said, “sorry” and completely missed the opportunity to engage with me and make a positive impression.

Unfortunately, many people are not taught how to sell, serve, or help a customer when the answer isn’t a simple yes or no.

Judgement and basic problem solving skills have gone out the window and, along with them, initiative has disappeared.

If you want to grow your business, make sure you look at how your team solves problems like when someone wants to buy and you don’t have what they want immediately available. These interactions can mean just as much if not more than those with customers who walk in (or click on your site) buy what they want, and leave.

Making sure to always interact with the customer in a professional and helpful way is a necessary sales skill whether you are selling social media services, recruitment, sales, or dog food.

For the record, Pet Valu will keep me as a customer because the girls who work in the other store I go to have exceptional customer service and always solve problems.

Unfortunately, not everyone will have a secondary experience to compare to when things go wrong so it’s imperative that you make sure every client interaction is the best it can be whether it results in an immediate sale or not.

Imagine that you do not know how to swim and someone throws you into a pool.

You are splashing around frantically, trying to grab onto the water, to pull yourself out so you can recover but instead the water does not support you because it is not solid and instead your efforts just expend more energy and create more panic inside.

Your fear consumes you and you feel like you are seriously about to drown.

In walks a swimming instructor, she jumps in the pool and says “It’s okay, let me teach you how to swim.”

The first thing you do is reach out and grab onto the instructor but you are so afraid that all you do is succeed in pulling her under the water too as you frantically try and save yourself. The instructor tries her best to help you but you are too far gone. The only thing she can try to do is let go and save herself.

Sometimes this happens in business too.

You own a business, you are behind on payments, sales are down and you are struggling to stay afloat financially. You are stressed and completely overwhelmed and realize the end is near unless you do something drastic.

You are afraid you are not going to be able to survive so you hire a business coach to help you and you negotiate a payment plan because you think if ONLY you hire this person, you will be saved, your business will be transformed.

Your business is already in deep trouble and the timing of hiring a coach could not be worse. Your situation is critical and you do not have the time, energy or funds to take action on the direction you are given.

Instead, you stall.

You stall on payments and you stall on taking action. You avoid the coach and go into hiding.

Then you blame the coach. It is the coaches fault because they did not save you.

This is a lose/lose situation.

It is a losing situation for you as a business owner because you did not take action soon enough. It’s like trying to unclog your arteries five minutes before you need surgery after eating fast food for forty years.

For the coach, it is trying to be a miracle worker instead of a coach and it will leave you exhausted, irritated and sometimes doubting your abilities.

The timing of coach and client could not be worse.

Business owners need to seek help before their businesses reach a critical situation that is beyond repair. Coaches need to learn when too identify when someone is too far gone to help and say no when they are financially unable to hire you.

These situations are usually tied to money.

The business owner cannot afford the coach but is desperately looking for help. The coach wants to help and dives in without payment and then becomes resentful when the business owner does not follow through.

This is a recipe for disaster, I know because it has happened to me and by sharing I hope it can help both business owners and coaches to see these situations for what they are and make the best choices for themselves.

What business owners should do is hire help early on to set themselves up for success.

You wouldn’t jump in a pool and try to learn how to swim all by yourself because you know chances are you might drown. You don’t want that to happen so you would take lessons either with a group of people or privately with a proper qualified instructor.

When you start a business there are many skills you need to learn including sales, financial management, cash-flow, operations, leadership, marketing and more. Trying to dive in and learn all of this while you start a business is a painful and risky way to start off.

Hire someone who has the experience to help set you up for success. It could be the best investment you make in yourself and your business when starting out.